Pound Fields Cottage

Pound Fields Cottage

Small one and a half storey vernacular cottage of two-unit plan with central entrance. The front and rear walls are substantially timber framed with brick infill. The right-hand bay contains brick and stone sections, whilst the gable ends are stone and brick. The roof is slate with gabled dormers and brick gable-end chimney stacks with lead flashings. A modern extension has been added to the rear.

The front wall is substantially box framed in irregular square panels with brick infills laid as "shiners" on their long narrow sides to accommodate the thinness of the timber frame. The right-hand unit is faced in brick with possible traces of paintwork imitating timber framing. There is clear evidence that the house has been raised in height with the addition of another band of square panelled framing to front and rear, the timbers of varying thickness. The right gable wall is rendered rubble stone up to first floor height, continuing around to part of the rear wall, with the upper part of this gable clad in corrugated iron. The left gable wall is common bond brickwork up to the first floor, the upper part concealed at inspection. A single storey lean-to extension to the rear contains a small brick bathroom out-shut on the left side. Paired gabled dormers to front and back feature six-paned windows and timber weatherboarding to the sides, those to the front aligned with ground floor windows. The left side has a 2-light small-paned casement filling one panel in the timber frame, the right side a 2-light casement with larger panes. A timber lean-to porch with slate roof over the front door is likely twentieth century.

The original building is two-up two-down with additional bathroom, kitchen and storeroom in the rear extension. Entry is into the main room, which contains a boxed-in dog-leg staircase starting against the rear wall before aligning with the partition. The rear door to the extension is also in this room. Timber panelling with lath and plaster infills is preserved in the rear wall and in the central partition beside the staircase. Low ceilings with the main room and parlour having separate spine beams. The main room's spine beam is chamfered and rests on a freestanding post below the stair, whilst the parlour spine beam is more straight-cut with its post incorporated into the partition wall, the end of the beam projecting through into the main room. There is a gap of about a foot in width between the two spine beams where they meet below the landing at the top of the stair. Both rooms have thin joists. The upper-level partition retains timbers from the lower original queen strut roof, now with a door cut through it. Timber framing exposed to the rear in upper rooms corresponds to the front where the height has been raised. Two large purlins from the raised roof structure run the full length of the house, though other timberwork here is late twentieth century replacement. Brick chimney breasts with fireplaces in all four rooms appear to be modern. Rear windows filling panels have been retained in the rear wall, with an early twentieth century Crittall window between the bathroom and a boiler cupboard in the rear corner of the main room, and a four-panel timber window between the kitchen and the bottom of the stair box.